After everything — the whispers, the photos, the thing that wore my face — I thought maybe, just maybe, it was done.
I was wrong.
This morning, I woke up to find my phone on my chest. It wasn’t where I left it. The screen was on, camera open.
A new photo was waiting.
It wasn’t me this time. It wasn’t him either.
It was my mother.
She was standing in my kitchen, eyes wide, skin pale, like she’d been caught off guard. The time stamp was from 3:47 AM.
She doesn’t live here. She’s been gone for five years.
My phone buzzed. A new message popped up from an unknown number:
"Come see her before she leaves again."
I didn’t want to. But I got up anyway.
The hallway felt longer than usual. Colder. My feet felt too heavy, like the floor was pulling me down. The house was too quiet.
When I reached the kitchen, the light was on.
My mom was standing there.
But it wasn’t her. Not really.
Her head tilted slowly, too far to one side. Her neck made a sound like wet branches snapping. Her eyes stared past me, unfocused, but her mouth moved — fast, like she was talking a mile a minute.
No sound came out.
Then she stopped. Her head straightened. Her eyes locked onto mine.
She spoke, but her voice wasn’t hers. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t anything I could describe.
"Why did you take my picture?"
My heart stopped. My throat tightened.
She took a step forward.
I took a step back.
Her skin started to peel, like paper burning from the edges. Underneath wasn’t flesh — it was black, wet, moving. Like something underneath her was wearing her skin.
"Don’t you want to see what I look like now?"
My phone buzzed again. Another message.
"Smile."
The camera clicked on by itself.
And the last thing I saw before the screen went black… was her face stretching into a grin that wasn’t hers.
The Stranger In My Photos 53 🤔🤔